


You Only Live Once

by astral_plant



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Complicated Emotions, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Goofy Teen Shenanigans, Not So Slow Burn Romance, Past Callum/Claudia, Rayla & Callum? Best Buds, Rayla's Gay Panic, Slice of Life, crackfic, no love triangles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2019-11-21 13:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18142589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astral_plant/pseuds/astral_plant
Summary: It’s a piquant surprise in any case, when Rayla reaches a point where she stops thinking of Claudia as her best friend’s ex-girlfriend, or even a friend of a friend. It gets to a point where she’s just Claudia in Rayla’s mind.Rayla transfers to Claudia’s high school. She doesn’t expect to make any friends, let alone to fall in love.





	1. You Only Live Once

“I love you,” Rayla blurts out. Silverware clatters onto the dining table when her hands fly up to cover her mouth. She regrets the words immediately as they stumble past her lips.   
   
Silence fills the air as Claudia's green eyes go wide and round like the pancakes they had been digging into. Rayla can see the cogs turning in Claudia’s head. Realisation dawns like a key turning in a lock; Claudia's long, dark hair sways elegantly as her posture straightens, and then her lips part, curving into a little ‘o’.  
   
Dread seizes Rayla: first by the collar, then by her heart. Her fears catch in her throat.

She rapidly shifts her gaze down, away from Claudia’s face. Down, past the sumptuous breakfast spread. Down, onto the hardwood floor. 

She doesn’t want to find out what’s inside Pandora’s box.  
  
“Sorry.”

The word slips out in a strained, panicked rush. Rayla's palms slap against the wooden dining table as she rises stiffly from the chair, its legs scraping noisily against the parquet floor. What's she waiting for? She’s struck a match to all the days they have left, and it’s all going up in smoke. If she stays any longer, she’ll suffocate from the fumes.  
  
“Wait!" Rayla catches Claudia say before slamming the backdoor shut. It’s sure to piss off Claudia’s dad if he’s still upstairs. _Ugh, whatever._ The old fart is the last thing she needs on her mind right now. He needn’t worry. Rayla is too embarrassed to come around here ever again. In the foreseeable future at least, she’ll be too busy digging a hole into the earth to bury herself alive.  
   
She’s hopping on one foot as she dons one beat-up white sneaker after the other.  _Screw the gates_ , she thinks as she hops the fence out of Claudia’s yard. She's already running halfway down the street by the time the backdoor to Claudia's house swings open.   
   
Rayla’s heart is a jackhammer beating to the constant refrain of  _shit-shit-shit_. Where can she run to? Where can she hide?  _Ugh!_  Something's in her pocket, vibrating. She bites the inside of her cheek. It’s Claudia calling, she knows this from the muffled music that spills out the pockets of her shorts.  
   
Rayla screams in frustration as she runs past lawn after picture-perfect lawn. She fumbles for the phone in her pocket, screams some more as she digs it out, as the lyrics and catchy beat trails after her in the crisp morning air. Still yelling unintelligibly, she chucks her phone into one of Ms Opeli’s rose bushes right after she rushes past Soren, who’s out on a languid jog.   
   
“Hardcore, Rayla," he says with an impressed whistle when he catches up to her. He tugs his earphones out his ears. "I get it. Technology just gets in the way of a good workout sometimes." He echoes her scream with a battle cry as he impulsively chucks a battered, old iPod behind him. She remembers him shouting something similar when the bunch of them were spectating his go at the Spartan Race. 

(Callum and Ezran’s Aunt Amaya won of course, but still. A for effort on Soren’s part. A+ for presentation, he likes to remind them.)

“Great excuse to chuck out old junk, too,” Soren says. He takes a deep, invigorating breath, then beats his chest with a fist as he runs by her side. He shoots her a cocky grin as he slicks back gelled, dirty-blond hair. “Nothing like fresh air to get the heart pumping, eh?”   
   
Rayla slaps a palm to her forehead. She wishes she hadn't a clue about how many times he’d practised that move in front of a mirror. She knows he means no ill, but she has neither the time nor the mental faculty to deal with his nonsense right now! If she sticks her leg out a tad, she can trip him up to the point where he’d land in the shrubs. He’d be no worse for wear, apart from maybe some scratches... 

 _Ugh, no._ The sigh Rayla lets out comes out more as a hiss through gritted teeth. Meathead or not, she doesn't have the heart do that to Soren, at least not unprovoked.  
   
She has so many other things to worry about, anyhow. For one, she isn’t entirely convinced she isn’t having a heart attack at this very moment. She could be! For all she knows. Already, she’s sweating bullets. Heck, her heart feels like it’s exploding out of her ribcage right this very second. She lets out another frustrated scream, even louder this time. And somehow that battle cry propels her feet to run even faster as she sprints away.   
   
“Hey!” Rayla catches Soren yell as she speeds away from him.“Your shoelaces are untied!”  
   
(Soren clucks his tongue. “Huh. I wonder if she remembered to warm-up,” he hazards, then shrugs. “Shit’s gonna  _burn_  tomorrow.”)

* * *

She’s running wild and aimless, fuelled by momentum and plain, primal embarrassment. Rayla vaults over one picket fence, then another, ignores the sting of splinters on her palms. The only reason she even stops in some stranger’s backyard is because she crash lands in a bunch of azaleas. She falls sideways as she tries to right herself, knocks instead into a pale blue bird feeder.   
   
Her heart’s still beating a mile a minute as she picks herself up off the grass. She looks around, then blinks once, twice, and again. She makes a quick rub at her eyes.  
   
So nope, she wasn’t just hallucinating a bunch of dogs wearing little multicoloured party hats. Their lil doggy ears collectively perk up at the sound and scent of a surprise invader. They're of a great variety of breeds, but as a united and enthusiastic fuzzy horde, they start yipping and barking excitedly as they catch sight of her. Tongues loll out the sides of mouths as they make a beeline for her from the other end of the backyard. Some even have little bow ties! She thinks she recognises two: a majestically lumbering dog and a puttering, cranky pug. 

So… okay, don’t get Rayla wrong. It’s cute as heck, but consider this: she’d rather not get rabies on top of everything else today. _Also, Katolians are just so weird sometimes_ , she thinks as she makes another hasty exit.  
   
Some of the more zealous dogs try to bite her, but it’s no use. Rayla’s over the fence and gone in a blink. Their canines gnash shut against empty air where her loose shoelaces once dangled. She thinks she hears someone call out her name in confusion, but maybe that was just a trick of the wind.  
   
Further away now from the source of her deep well of shame, Rayla doesn’t feel quite so suffocated by the weight of her actions. That is to say, she’s still running helter-skelter down the pavement, but it’s her soles hurting more now, rather than her heart. She hadn't had time to wear her sneakers properly, you see.  
   
She slows down from a sprint. Eventually, her ambling jog tapers to a stop as she leans against the trunk of a tree. It’s a sturdy and weathered old oak. Gnarled, coarse bark digs uncomfortably into her back as she ties her laces and catches her breath. It’s not a comfortable position in the least, but the sensation is comforting in a grounding sort of way.   
   
Rayla combs back her sweat-slick hair, lets out an exhausted sigh, then thinks. _Shit. Where to now?_ Claudia will definitely find her if she hightails it home. There were her usual haunts, but she didn’t want to risk Claudia finding her there either, else Rayla would be too mortified to ever show her face there ever again.  
   
So okay, that trail of logic didn’t make entirely enough sense. She’d have to face her eventually. They attend the same high school for fuck’s sake! She couldn’t just sneak off to class every day until Claudia graduated! ...In Rayla's defence, it’s hard to be a 100% rational when she’s this thirsty and running low on adrenaline.   
   
She clicks her tongue. There was a strange mix of flavours still lingering in her mouth: the sweetness from the maple syrup, the soft, savoury taste of Claudia’s impossibly fluffy pancakes. Rayla dabs her dry lips with her tongue and can taste the sweat from her embarrassingly frantic escape, too. 

That reminder of what she'd done? It doesn't help in the least!

“Ugh!” 

Her forehead hits the coarse bark with a dull thud. Rayla bites her tongue.  _Damnit_ , she thinks, and briefly considers punching the tree.

...She doesn’t follow through with that impulse. It isn't the tree’s fault her mouth has no impulse control.  
   
Hands tucked into her back pockets, she looks up and past the sun dappled canopy of leaves.The branches could probably support her weight, but still!  _What am I, a cat?_  Rayla thinks with a self-deprecating little huff. She’s thinking of slinking off to Runaan’s workplace to hide—taking it out on a punching bag wouldn’t exactly help her situation, but at least it’d help her feel better—when she spots Callum’s house around the bend, looming large and imposing in the distance.   
   
Rayla draws a shaky breath. It was about time the universe threw her a bone. Callum’s place wasn’t exactly a greener pasture, or a safe haven. But it'll do for a strategic retreat. Claudia... well, Rayla doubts she'd come looking for Rayla at her ex's place. So... yeah.  
   
_Down the rabbit hole I go,_ Rayla thinks as she raps her knuckles against a red, cherry wood door.

* * *

The first time they meet is when she's fourteen. Wait, that’s not quite right. Rayla’s fifteen when they meet, but she’s fourteen when she first learns about Claudia.

It starts at the periphery, with an abstract acquaintanceship: they share a mutual friend but haven’t met and in all honesty, probably never will. As things are wont to be when Claudia's involved, it’s kind of weird and highly improbable how they fall into place in each other’s life.

 _Improbable? That’s just another kind of probable!_ Claudia would probably say of this, if asked.   
   
Rayla’s in Katolis for the summer while her parents are abroad on a business trip. Callum‘s the first friend she makes here, Ezran’s the second. They’re both special to her heart because she didn’t think she’d be making any friends here at all to begin with. How they wind up meeting is another story altogether. But yes, if you must know, she saves them from a bunch of bullies. And yes, she is a total badass.

Popsicles in hand, the three of them stroll along the flat, sun-baked stretch near the beachfront. Rayla’s is grape-flavoured. It’s not very relevant to what will happen next, but it’s a palatable flavour. Ezran’s ahead of them, walking Bait on a leash and stopping dutifully whenever the lil pug wants to sniff something or take a leak. How do the logistics work exactly, with his lil frog raincoat on? Rayla’s never had a pet. She can only hope for the best.   
   
All’s going well until a delivery guy zips by on a skateboard.  
   
“My bad, dude!” he calls out when he accidentally jostles Callum.   
   
The good news is that Callum doesn’t drop his ice cream. The bad news is that his notebook winds up flying out his other hand. It skids a good deal before landing rumpled and scuffed against the pavement.  
   
“Aw, come on!” Callum yells as he gestures futilely at the figure speeding off and away. It’s a bad move. The guy doesn’t even bother turning around, and Callum’s popsicle shifts just so and drips all over his hand, right down to his elbow. Callum groans, then makes to lick his elbow. Well... he tries to. Rayla's not gonna mince words: it ain't a pretty sight. For one thing, Callum isn't very flexible. 

She could do one of two things. She could make fun of him right now. She totally could, but...

“I got this,” Rayla says instead, with her own popsicle stick in-between her teeth. “Go clean up.”  
   
“Thanks,” he says with a grin, sheepish and relieved. He makes a beeline to a nearby food stand. Off to raid some napkins, probably. 

Rayla walks a bit before bending down to pick up the leather-bound notebook. She’s surprised by the heft and feel of it, mildly impressed by the workmanship and gilded finishings. Callum told her once, that it was a birthday present from his stepdad. What can she say? If gifts inform the giver, he seems like a thoughtful enough guy.

She looks a little ahead of her, just a quick check to make sure Ez is alright. True enough, he’s crouched down at Bait’s level as he pets another dog on a leash, scratching the three-legged pup behind its ears. Rayla smiles: at ease and frankly impressed. Looks like he’s made a new friend.  
   
She returns her attention to the book in hand and candidly starts flipping through its pages. Shifting the popsicle stick from her left cheek to her right, she considers his drawings. Credit where credit is due: she’s no expert, but Callum’s a pretty good artist, she thinks as she licks the dregs of flavour out of the popsicle stick. She recognises a few landmarks, his school, his house, his room, his mom and step-dad. She lets out a little hum when she flips the page and sees someone she doesn’t recognise at all.  
   
It’s a girl around their age with long, dark hair. She’s seated demurely on a wooden chair as she reads a book. Bookshelves tower behind her, but she’s blind to the world beyond, absorbed with the story unfolding on the page. Rayla clicks her tongue. The drawing’s different from the others: less sketchy, more polished. Rayla makes a considering noise in the back of her throat before flipping the page, and there the girl is again: twirling a lock of hair as she sits under the bough of a tree, cheeks dimpling endearingly as she laughs.  
   
_A picture’s worth a thousand words._ She’d read that once before at a yard sale, in big blocky letters up on one of those cheesy inspirational posters. She had rolled her eyes then, convinced it was such an overused cliche. But here and now, Rayla runs her fingers against a thousand little lines of pencil against paper, against an elegant cascade of jet black hair and the charming curve of a smile, and smiles a little bit herself. Pictures did speak; laid feelings bare in an open book.  
   
Rayla snaps the book shut after that.  _Callum’s crushing hard,_  she thinks with a smug haughtiness that can only be associated with someone who wholeheartedly believes that love is for the birds. 

* * *

He’s red-faced when Rayla brings it up later, caught so off-guard that he sputters and coughs as he chokes on his spit.  _Yuck_. Rayla slaps him on the back more as a show of support than an attempt to provide actual help.   
   
“Callum!” Ezran shouts from a little further down the beach. ”Are you okay?”  
   
“Yeah!” Callum hollers back when he’s not quite so red in the face and short of breath. “Don’t worry about me. Just... keep away from the water, okay?”  
   
Ezran shoots him a thumbs up before he continues his game of fetch with Bait and his two new friends.  
   
“Way to go for the kill, Rayla.” Callum musses up his hair before cupping his fair cheeks in his hands. ”What am I saying? This is on me,” he mumbles as he digs his toes further into the damp, white sand. It's all he can do to hide. “I should’ve known you’d snoop.”  
   
“…Sorry.” Rayla sheepishly rubs her arm. “I didn’t mean to—You’re always drawing something. I was just curious.”   
   
“I know. I know you didn’t mean any harm. It’s just… really personal, y’know? Next time, just ask.” He scoffs. “You’re making this weird. ”  
   
“ _I’m_  making this weird?” Rayla’s voice flares in exasperation.   
   
“Well, y-yeah. You’re not laughing, or... or making fun of me at all.”  
   
“Well, you’re not being very funny. And you haven’t done anything dumb this time.“ She crosses her arms so she won’t do anything rash like smack his cheek with her flipflop. She takes a breath and lets it out to calm herself, tries instead to put her feelings into words. “Look, I don’t get why you’re so embarrassed. You’re a good artist. And you like a girl. So what?”   
   
Callum still won’t look at her, so she turns her gaze downwards instead, where the waves lap at their feet. Rayla lets out a sigh as she flips over an empty seashell.  _Ugh, this guy._  “I can make fun of you now, if you want. I’ve a lot of material.”  
   
That at least, manages to elicit a laugh from him. “No! Don’t. I-ahem,” he says hurriedly. Choking on laughter, he coughs into a fist. 

(Rayla rolls her eyes. He  _literally_  said ‘ahem’.) 

”You don't have to. I appreciate the thought though. Sorry... for being all weird. I’m still kind of shell-shocked, I guess, about the support.”  
   
“Why? We’re friends, aren’t we?”  
   
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, of course we are! It’s just that… no one else thinks I have a chance...” Callum trails off.  
   
“Not with that attitude, you won’t,” Rayla snipes. “So c’mon. Tell me about her already.”  
   
“Alright. So... her name’s Claudia. Everyone thinks it’s just a crush, but... I really like her, Rayla. She makes me feel things. She makes me think. And... see the world a whole different way,” he says, voice a little distant as he bends down to pick up a small, flat stone. He turns it around and around in his palms. He's thinking, no doubt. “It's like… Everything feels so much better when she’s around, and I just... feel so happy to be alive.“  
   
Rayla smiles, a little smug, a little happy for him. Callum’s kind of a huge sap, but he’s also her best friend. She follows his lead, but with less preamble. Her rock skips against the waves, twice, thrice, four times before it plops into the depths.  
   
“Then tell her that, you goof!” Rayla says as she gives his shoulder a light push. “Tell her all those things you’ve just told me. I’m sure it’ll all work out.”  
   
“That’s easy for you to say.” Callum laughs, stone still in hand. “You’re Rayla. You’re... the most kickass person I know. Okay, don’t tell Aunt Amaya I said that.”  
   
“The most kickass person our age,” Rayla corrects, because they broke the mold when they made his aunt, and that’s a fact even Rayla won’t dispute.  
   
“Yeah, that’s it,” he says with a chuckle as he chucks the stone. Rayla traces its arc in the air from when it hits its zenith, up to its plunge into the water.  
   
They share an easy smile, but uneasiness still nibbles away at her. _So what if I'm me?_ she thinks with a frown. He always talks like his skill sets are a lower measure in the grand scheme of things. _Look into a mirror and see your damn worth,_ she wants to tell him. Because he’s earnest and hard working and kind. Because it’s magic to her: all the things he can do with a pencil and paper, to create something from nothing. 

All these things, she does not say. When she stops biting down on her bottom lip, what trails out is this: “Teach me one day how to draw, yeah?”  
   
“Sure. We’re friends, right?” He echoes her words from earlier, and they laugh as the sun sets in front of them: a big, orange yolk staining the sea a myriad of carnelian hues.  
   
Rayla’s ears prick up at the sound of feet padding against wet sand. There's a peculiar sound accompanying it too, that's definitely not the crashing waves. What is that? Heavy breathing? Panting? It starts out faint, and grows: louder and louder. By the time Rayla thinks to look behind them, Bait's already jumped onto Callum's back, and the boy's already in the midst of tumbling belly first into the water.   
  
Rayla joins Ezran in laughter when Callum emerges from the shallows. His shirt and shorts are absolutely soaked and seaweed’s dangling off his head. She gives Ezran a piggyback ride away from the seaweed monster and can’t remember the last time she had so much fun.  
   
There’s a smile on her face when they make the long way home, but her stomach’s churning, too. She tells herself it’s the cheap food taking its revenge, but if she’s being honest with herself, it might just be jealousy. It’s the dumbest thing. She isn’t even sure what she’s jealous about, but there’s this gross feeling crawling under her skin, like a slug squirming from her stomach up to her heart.  
   
She swallows it down because there’s no room for that, not in her life, or in his.  
   
Romance is a cliche she wants no part in.  
   
Rayla is fourteen years old, and she believes that with all her heart. 

* * *

Most of the time, Rayla only spends summers with Runaan, but life changes course as the wind is fickle, and it’s all Rayla can do to keep pace. Her parents love her: she knows this, but of course she resents the situation a little. _Whatever_. They’re not worth her anger. They’re rarely at home to begin with, even when they are at home. So forget blood relations! Runaan’s family as far as she’s concerned. He’s always been there for her when she needed him. He's more family than her folks ever were. So... yeah! Story of her life: she moves to Callum and Ezran’s hometown come the next year.  
   
Being on vacation and actually having long term living arrangements here feels so different though. Rayla’s been here so many times throughout her childhood that it feels sort of like a home away from home. Still, she’s branded by most of her peers as the new kid. Sometimes they poke fun of her accent and ask strange questions, but all in all: Katolis isn’t so bad. It helps that she already has friends here. Alright… exactly two friends if she's not mincing numbers. Three if you count Bait. Callum and Ezran attend different schools, but they all hang out on weekends, whenever they can.

She keeps most of her classmates at a fair enough distance. They don't bully her, or anything like that. They don't ask her to hang out with them, either. It works out just as well. Rayla's never been much of a people person, after all. It's cleaner this way, she tells herself. She'd been forcibly uprooted so many times before. This way, it's easier on everyone if she ever needed to suddenly move again, at the whim of her folks.

The messy parts come into play because she didn’t account for running into other acquaintances, too. She’s on the way to her first AP Lit class when she spots Claudia in the hallway. The only reason Rayla’s able to spot her is that she sticks out like a sore thumb: decked out all in black, with purple streaks at the ends of her long hair, and silver studs in in her ears. The sight catches Rayla so off guard that she stops dead in her tracks mid-step, like a deer caught in the headlights.  
   
”Ow,” says someone behind her when she walks straight into Rayla’s back.  
   
_Oh great,_  Rayla thinks. Rayla isn’t even aware of the one finger salute she gets in response, doesn’t even spare the scowling girl a glance.  _Don’t make eye contact._ Rayla thinks frantically. _Don’t goddamn breathe!_ It helps a little that Claudia’s walking around with a book all but completely blocking her line of vision, but the rest of it plays out like some weird nightmare.  
   
_Walkin’ away now,_ Rayla thinks to herself, panicked and stilted. It’s like she’s putting on a one-girl stage show to everyone unfortunate enough to be spectating.  _Just act normal. Hold your head up high. That’s it. No one's staring._

 _Shit, everyone’s staring!_  
   
Some tall, spiky-haired guy even has his phone out. _Ugh..._ the mortification of it. She feels like an overripe tomato, her face a bruised shade of red right up to the tips of her ears. _Don’t make eye contact! Just! Walk! Away!_  She thinks as she storms off to class.

* * *

She slumps into her seat with a sigh. Rayla thinks she didn’t do half bad for someone put on the spot like that. She combs her hands through her unruly hair: a nervous tick she’d picked up from Runaan. Well, of course Claudia’d be here too. That’s just her luck.   
   
Rayla’s blush had died down by now, but she was still pretty keyed up. Yes, if you must know, onlookers did think they had been watching a weird amateur mime routine. Yes, that didn’t help at all in the strange question department.

Still, calling her earlier actions an overreaction was putting it lightly, even Rayla will admit that.

...Especially because it wasn’t like she hated Claudia or anything like that, Rayla thinks as she furiously clicks her pen. For one, she hadn’t even met the girl! It just felt kind of weird. That was normal, right? Of course it was.  
   
She had to bear with Callum gushing about Claudia for oh, give or take forever. But when they broke up, Callum just clammed up one day without even broaching the reason why. Zilch. Zip. Nada. It was a hot potato topic right there, and Rayla's convinced that Claudia had more fault in that.  
   
Rayla clicks and twirls her ballpoint pen to take some of the edge off. She rests her cheek in the palm of her free hand. What she was feeling was probably some weird, misplaced guilt. She knows it doesn't make any sense, but she can't help feeling partly at fault. Maybe if she hadn’t interfered, hadn’t pried into Callum’s notebook that day… Maybe if she hadn’t encouraged him to tell Claudia how he felt, things between them wouldn’t have soured.  
   
Would it have been better if they hadn’t had the chance to begin at all? Rayla thinks with a frown as she grips her pen tighter. In her mind, the other path—the one not taken—looms, mysterious and beguiling, like a guiding light to unfamiliar shores.   
   
Then again, it could just as easily have turned out worse. Life was full of hard-to-answer questions like that.  
   
She’s brought back to the present by the sound of a bell. Stragglers start trailing into class. And speak of the devil, in Claudia walks, too. If Rayla had been holding a pencil in her hand, this would be the point where it snapped in two. As it stands, it’s all Rayla can do to grasp the pen white-knuckled in her hand. Of course she’d take the one available seat that was next to Rayla. Of course! What’s next?  
   
“Hey. Rayla, right?” Claudia’s cheeks dimple ever so slightly when she turns to smile at her. “I’m Claudia. Callum told me all about you!”  
   
Rayla would really appreciate it if the ground ruptures beneath her feet and just swallows her whole right then and there.   
   
Sadly, she has no such luck. 

* * *

Callum had been nothing but generous about the compliments he’d heap onto Claudia. Still, Rayla had thought it’d feel ten different shades of weird and wrong to spend time with her best friend’s ex-girlfriend. She knew she wasn’t being entirely rational or fair, but Rayla had convinced herself that Claudia was probably the kind of person whose reputation superseded her: someone whose outward persona was a shiny sham when you peeled back the layers.   
   
The short of it is: she had expected Claudia to be snippy, mean-spirited or self-absorbed.   
   
Claudia winds up being none of those things.  
   
They sit opposite each other in the cafeteria as they discuss clubs Rayla considers joining. She asks how Rayla’s adjusting to the curriculum, and they talk about their commuting situation before she offers to walk Rayla home. Apparently, they don’t live that far away from each other. Well, that’s just  _great_  to know! Rayla turns down her offer for today at least, and doesn’t mention that she’s due to stop by Callum and Ezran’s house later.  
   
“It’s so exciting to finally meet you,” Claudia confesses, her voice a little bashful as she tucks stray strands of long, dark hair behind her ear. “Y'know, I’m kind of a fan.”  
   
Rayla double-takes at the words, winds up choking on her chocolate milk. It’s a wonder how she doesn’t wind up spewing it all over the table like a fire-breathing dragon.  
   
“W-what?” Rayla sputters after she’s successfully stopped choking. She feels her cheeks heating up. It just… _god_. _What the heck is happening?_  
   
“Yeahh!” Claudia exclaims excitedly. She beams at her from across the table, and Rayla swears she sees stars in the other girl’s eyes. “Callum told me about how you met him and Ez. These huge bullies cornered them in an alley like they were about to kidnap them or something, and you dropped in out of nowhere like  _fwa-cha_ —” Claudia spices up the story by giving the air a few lively karate chops. One stops so close to Rayla’s nose, it has her cross-eyed— ”Swish! And swept one of their legs with your martial arts and beat up the lot them.”  
   
“I… okay,” Rayla gives a sheepish laugh before rubbing the back of her neck. “I don’t remember it being that dramatic.”  
   
“Aw, you’re just being modest,” Claudia insists. She punctuates her statement with a little wink, and then her expression softens. The lighthearted air of playfulness gets displaced by something a little more wistful, a little more solemn. “Thanks. For helping them out. It sucks having high profile parents sometimes.”   
   
Claudia offers to share half her peanut butter sandwich and brownie and Rayla feels like she’s having a conniption. Too much is happening too fast. Her brain feels like it’s being torn in two opposing directions. She says yes to the brownie, no to the sandwich. She winds up agreeing to do lunch again.  
   
“I’ll see you around,” Claudia says with a smile when the lunch bell finally rings.  
   
Brownie in hand, Rayla is left light-headed and reeling as she watches Claudia saunter away from her.


	2. Graceless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a piquant surprise in any case, when Rayla reaches a point where she stops thinking of Claudia as her best friend’s ex-girlfriend, or even a friend of a friend. It gets to a point where she’s just Claudia in Rayla’s mind. 
> 
> The revelation doesn’t span just a day, it’s made up of a hundred different intertwining moments in time. Like the makings of a quilt, Rayla spends the thick of it lost in the momentum of every stitch.

The second time they have lunch together in the cafeteria, Claudia asks to see Rayla’s phone.

Claudia startles at the sight of the old make Rayla fishes from out her backpack. Rayla rolls her eyes at the reaction. She knows exactly what’s panning out in the other girl’s head right now: Who in their right mind still uses a flip phone in this day and age?

Well, for one, it was a gift from Runaan when she was younger! As far as Rayla’s concerned, it’s a good luck charm. It survived being punted halfway across an open field back in Xadia on account of a dare. It survived being chucked out her bedroom window the day her parents couldn’t make it back on time to celebrate her eleventh birthday. In the event of a nuclear fallout, Rayla is completely convinced the only survivors of the carnage would be the world’s cockroach population and her goddamn flip phone.

She’s bracing for a (verbal) brawl. Rebuttals are already on the tip of Rayla’s tongue, ready to leap out, but Claudia doesn’t draw any further attention to her ancient relic of a mobile at all. All she does is tinker with the number pads for a bit before placing it gently back in Rayla’s hands with a smile.

Claudia's a mystery Rayla still can't parse out. She doesn't even make fun of the dorky anime keychain Callum and Ezran got her for Christmas. What's her endgame here? Who _doesn’t_ take a shot like that?

“Here’s my number. We should hang sometime,” Claudia says before rising abruptly from her seat with an apologetic smile. “Sorry to cut it short, but I’ve got library books due today and I won’t have time after school.”

“S’okay. Happens to all of us.” Rayla waves off her abrupt departure with a shrug, and doesn’t expect the pudding cup Claudia holds up in front of her face.

Her long black hair falls forward from over her shoulder when she dips her head and holds out her hand.

“Thanks. Here—” Claudia says as she winks playfully at Rayla— “for being so chill about me stealing you away.”

Claudia has a way of regarding her with a singleminded sort of attentiveness that makes the rest of the world fall away. It’s all Rayla can do to nod numbly as she takes it.

Rayla’s sneakers squeak against the linoleum floor as she fidgets on the plastic bench. She rolls the pudding cup between her palms as she thinks. Claudia unbalances her. Claudia unbalances her in every sense of the word. It’s like… It’s like she’s a piece of art in a museum that Rayla has to squint and tilt her head at in order to take in. Even then, she doesn’t know quite what to make of her, let alone how to feel about it all.

There’s a crisp sound as she peels back the plastic wrap. For a brief moment, it cuts through the cacophony of noise in the crowded cafeteria.

 _It’s good,_ Rayla thinks, licking the corner of her mouth after that first spoonful. Sweet and creamy, like some kinda flan.

It’s strange what the mind chooses to remember.

* * *

The only reason they’re even a part of each other’s lives is because they share a mutual friend. That’s the truth of it Rayla can’t shake off. And at first, anyway, that thought hangs like a dark cloud over her head. That, and maybe some misguided sense of loyalty, if she’s being honest.

In retrospect, it’s the most ridiculous thing, but okay. Whew! Take a breath. We’re getting off track here.

The short of it is that Rayla had expected them to grate on each other’s nerves, for the best case scenario to be a hundred and one awkward, stilted conversations. And after that, they’d call it quits and decide to avoid each other like the black plague, which wouldn’t be so hard to do in a school full of other people.

Is it weird how easily they end up clicking instead?

Because as sure as the sun is a giant ball of exploding gas, Rayla finds that she genuinely likes Claudia as a person.

They don’t really wind up making plans to meet, though. At least not in those first few weeks, because Rayla can’t bring herself to call. She’ll thumb through her contacts in the wee hours of the morning or night. She only ever gets as far as to hover over Claudia’s name. She’ll ponder about what to say and how best to say it, maybe even practise aloud, before chucking the phone halfway across the room. She’ll smother her scream of embarrassed frustration into a pillow, and yell out she’s fine when Runaan knocks concernedly at her bedroom door, asking if she’s okay.

(That’s one routine she has down pat.)

Brought together by happenstance instead, they wind up with a strange arrangement. They’ll run into each other at school, or on the way home and they’ll talk while en route to their respective destinations. They share a class, but the rest of it’s entirely incidental… maybe a little serendipitous if Rayla is being generous.

Friendship doesn’t bloom overnight, or even in the span of a fortnight, but they build their bridges all the same. Brick upon brick with every conversation they share, and each laugh they draw from the other’s lips.

It’s a piquant surprise in any case, when Rayla reaches a point where she stops thinking of Claudia as her best friend’s ex-girlfriend, or even a friend of a friend. It gets to a point where she’s just Claudia in Rayla’s mind. Claudia: well-intentioned and quirky, absent-minded in a tunnel-visioned sort of way.

The revelation doesn’t span just a day, it’s made up of a hundred different intertwining moments in time. Like the makings of a quilt, Rayla spends the thick of it lost in the momentum of every stitch.

It’s only now that she can look back properly, in retrospect. Now that her hands have grown calloused from the prick of a needle; now that her eyes have grown sharp to the fine thread of every action, every misstep along the way.

If she has to pick a point where they become friends, it’d be the day she catches Claudia so engrossed in a book she almost walks into a ditch.

Rayla’s making her way back from a track and field session when she spots Claudia ambling along with her nose in a book. Rayla wipes the sweat off her forehead with the towel draped around the back of her neck. She’s loose-limbed and exhausted, riding on the kind of high only a good run can give.

They wouldn’t be running into any problems at all, if the school wasn’t in the middle of renovations. Cause of that, they’d funnelled pedestrians to the long, narrow walkway running parallel to a ditch. With the way Claudia was slowly veering off course, it was only a matter of time before she fell in. Rayla’s nerves were singing and her head was still a little airy when she tilts it to the side and considers calling out Claudia’s name, but there’s not enough time for that.

Before she knows it, her body’s already in motion.

She sprints. Time seems to stall as Rayla reaches a hand out to grab her arm. Claudia jolts from the sudden contact. Even through the fabric of Claudia’s long-sleeved, lilac blouse, Rayla can feel the shiver run from her shoulder to arm, like ripples breaking the surface of a still lake.

Claudia’s right foot freezes mid-step in the air as her book slips out from her other hand, its pages fluttering like a bird taking flight. It doesn’t wind up flying very far before landing at the bottom of a sun-scorched ditch, amidst the dirt and dry leaves.

Claudia’s black, pleated skirt flares out from the motion of Rayla pulling her back from the edge and into her arms. Rayla’s brought back to reality at the sound of Claudia’s incredulous, raspy laughter when both her feet are back on solid ground. Claudia rests her head against the crook of Rayla’s neck. She’s still giggling a tad as she smoothes down the ends of her skirt with one hand.

Wait, what? Rayla tilts her head quizzically before realization dawns.

She lets go of Claudia’s other hand like she had been holding a lump of hot coal. She bites her lip as she turns away. Her gaze fixes instead on the sun-scorched drain. She eyes the book’s shoddy nest with a little disdain. She doesn’t envy it in the least.

Her white sneakers scuff against rough concrete when she edges down to retrieve the book. _What a nasty fall that would’ve been,_ she thinks, instead of: _what the hell just happened?_

Its pages are yellowed. The spine’s a little loose, too. On its cover, a stuffed toy bear is being carried off by a kite. Rayla recognises it from her childhood. What’d it always used to say all the time? Oh bother.

Rayla’s lips curl slightly in a wry smile as she dusts dirt off its face. The Tao of what now? Strange book, strange girl: she supposes the two go hand in hand, given the circumstances.

“You’ve a nose for trouble huh?” Claudia says, bright-eyed and smiling as she proffers a hand to help hoist Rayla back up. Rayla eyes her skeptically, from her delicate wrist to her spindly build. She had a feeling they’d both wind up in the ditch if she takes Claudia’s hand.

"More like trouble has a nose for me,” Rayla replies with a huff as she hands Claudia back her book instead. What sort of wisdom could one gleam from such childish things? She makes her own way up while Claudia chuckles ruefully.

“Be more mindful next time,” Rayla chides as she wipes her dusty hands against her black running shorts. “You almost had a nasty fall, there.”

“Sorry. I guess I was too caught up with reading. Bad habit from when I was a kid,” Claudia says as she slots the book into her satchel. She rummages through its contents before retrieving a banana. She holds it out to Rayla with a small smile. “Here. Thanks for the save.”

Okay… first off: who packs that much extra food all the time? Was Claudia’s satchel some kind of mobile pantry? Was it a secret portal to another dimension? Was that it!? Not that the food wasn’t good, because it almost always was, but the whole situation was really starting to do Rayla’s head in! Was Claudia trying to induce a weird Pavlovian conditioning? Because it’s kind of working and she won’t stand for this!

“Bribing me with food won’t help. You really have to be more careful. I mean it,” Rayla says sternly, even as she starts peeling the fruit.

…The only reason she took the damn banana is because she’s famished from all that running!

”You’ll give me a heart attack one of these days, I swear,“ Rayla says with an angry huff, and a mouthful of fruit.

Claudia blinks. She tilts her head, and lets out a playful chuckle. When next she speaks, there’s a cheeky little grin on her face. “Aw, c’mon. I’m pretty sure bananas are good for you. Not… necessarily for your heart,” she jibes as she points (un)helpfully to Rayla’s chest, then moves down. ”But at least your tummy.”

“Ugh!” Rayla fumes as she combs a hand through her ashen hair, mussing it all up. They all have their bad habits. Her short ponytail’s coming loose, and now her face is red again, too. She just knows it. “I know you know what I’m talking about!”

Claudia’s smile curves up, grows a little more sharp, her words a little more wry. “Y’know, I think bananas help with high blood pressure, too.”

Rayla lets out a long and frustrated noise of exasperation. She shakes her ponytail loose, coils the hair tie around her wrist with a snap, then rounds on Claudia.

“Forget the heart attack. I’ll kill you myself!”

Claudia squeals and runs when Rayla whips her sweat-soaked towel at her.

It’s the first time they walk each other home.

They hang out more often after that. 

* * *

Rayla learns a little more about Claudia each time. There were her little idiosyncrasies, there was her unfettered enthusiasm for a hotchpotch of hobbies, like how she’d divvy her time up between the library and the Home Ec Room. Sometimes, she'd even help out with horticultural stuff around school. 

(Look… Claudia’s really unpredictable and just kind of weird. Rayla has no idea.)

Rayla learns these facts over a period of weeks, whenever she runs into her. More often than not, the sun is hanging in the backdrop when it happens, low in the sky as it washes the walls a warm, ruddy shade. Maybe Claudia spends so much time in school because she just doesn't want to go home.

Rayla could understand that. Runaan’s great, but he has a day job, and only gets home around dinner time. She’d drop by sometimes to help train, but Runaan would give her these gently chiding talks when she shows up too often.

He wants her to “enjoy her childhood”. She doesn’t know what he’s on about. What wasn’t enjoyable about one-upping a cocky opponent more than twice her size? Still… she knows that Runaan always means well, which is why she spends the first few weeks after the transfer purposely keeping away. Instead of slamming opponents into the mat, she takes to wandering the empty hallways and finding quiet spots to get the jump on homework.

Rayla’s on the way back home from school one day when she catches sight of the strangest thing. It’s Claudia, of all people: carting around a wheelbarrow full of mulch at the back of the school, on the way to the greenhouse. The sight’s… kinda cute, and equally hilarious, what with the whole farmer motif. Rayla doesn’t have anything against farmers, it’s just… kind of mind-blowing to see Claudia decked out in gardening gloves and a wide-brimmed straw hat, wearing jeans for once, with a dirty beige button-up, to boot.

Rayla can’t help seizing the chance to poke fun at her. _Revenge_ , Rayla thinks, _is a dish best served every chance you get_. Rayla sneaks up behind Claudia before she flicks the straw hat so that it covers her eyes. Claudia yips when she’s plunged into darkness, the wheelbarrow wobbling precariously as she reaches to set her hat right.

Rayla’s sniggering with one hand steadying the wheelbarrow when Claudia turns her head to glare at her.

“What’s with the outfit?” Rayla says, meeting furious green eyes head-on with a little self-satisfied sneer. “Next thing I know you’ll be riding a horse out of town.”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Rayla,” Claudia says with a roll of her eyes before she resumes her journey to the greenhouse, on her very own Oregon Trail. (Callum had told Rayla about it sometime back. He’d put all their names into some online game. According to him, Rayla wandered off two months into their journey across the Pacific Northwest, and the gang all got dysentery at Soda Springs. Fun times.)

“So what’s with the mulch?” Rayla can’t help the curiosity seeping into her voice. “Burying a body or somethin’?”

"Woah!" Claudia lets out a good natured laugh. “That got dark really quick. Sorry to disappoint, I just help out with the greenhouse sometimes. Between you and me..." she brings her voice to a stage whisper, all while she circumvents a little pit in the ground amidst the dry, grassy path. "I get to cook some of the stuff we grow.”

"Soren was supposed to pitch in today, but then he had to resit a test…” Claudia says, heaving a little as she pushes the wheelbarrow up a gentle incline. She stops for a bit to wipe sweat from her brow with her shirt sleeve. 

Rayla raises an eyebrow. Who’s Soren again?

“Well… good luck with that,” Rayla says as she kicks a pebble out of Claudia’s path, and almost trips into a pitfall.  _What’s up with that?_  Rayla thinks in bemusement about the sorry state of land. It was funny, and kind of a little sad.  _Did they have a groundhog problem? Wild dogs, maybe?_

“That’s like… what, trying to rear a farm in a desert?”

“Even a desert needs an oasis, Rayla,” Claudia says simply as she presses on.

Rayla clucks her tongue as she stands rooted to the spot, watching Claudia gradually push the wheelbarrow up the gentle slope. Even a desert needs an oasis, Rayla repeats the words: first in her head, then in a whisper, testing the way they sound on her tongue. Rayla lets out a small, listless hum then. 

What was this? A crash course in the Tao of Claudia? Rayla wonders, mostly amused, a tad curious. Claudia’s mind is an enigma: a really weird one. She radiates well-intentioned enthusiasm and is essentially… a totally incorrigible dork. ...It’s not like Rayla’s going to hold that last bit against her. Her best friend is _Callum_ , for fuck’s sake. That’s like… King Dork, right there.

Rayla catches up to her in a few brisk paces. “C’mon, step aside,” Rayla says as she tugs the back of Claudia’s collar. Befuddled, Claudia turns to face Rayla, who’s cracking the joints in her fingers.

“My turn,” she says simply before she makes to push up the sleeves of her dark grey hoodie.

“Oh, thank god!” 

* * *

“Rayla? Oh, hey.”

“Awfully… calm way to greet someone climbing through your window,” Rayla says, her shoes scuffing against the floor as she lands in Callum’s room. Her eyebrows knit together in the aftermath, her expression's a step between surprise and befuddlement. “Shouldn’t you be more alarmed?”

“Eh.” He tosses a shrug her way before returning to fiddling with his controller. She’d heard the frantic music and gunfire from one floor down. Given the subject material, you’d think he’d be at least a little spooked by an intruder.

Just moments before, Rayla’s own fears had been brewing like a storm. Feet on the dark shingles of the roof and hands gripping the faded white windowsill, Rayla had froze, seized by a thought. What if… what if…  What if he already knew—?

What if he didn’t want her there?

What if he didn't want to be her friend anymore? 

...What then? 

She had tasted iron in her mouth and didn’t remember ever biting her lip. She had felt small and exhausted in a way she hadn’t in a very long time. Her hands were trembling against the windowpanes as she sucked in a breath. 

Even then... tossed about by fears and weighed down with doubt as she was, what Rayla knew was this: the only way ahead was forward. Her right hand was still trembling when she clenched it into a fist and rapped on his window.

The click-clack rhythm of Callum’s button-mashing dictates the speed of his words. “Eh. Shimmying up the gutter pipe and into my room isn’t the weirdest thing you’ve done.”

Here and now, Rayla rolls her eyes. The smile on her face is an afterthought, albeit a relieved one. Looks like she had held her breath for no good reason. Rayla plops down onto the hardwood floor beside him before having a look around. She spots some fast food on a tray by his legs, but her head's still a little too dizzy for that.

All in all, Callum’s room hadn’t changed much, which made sense. It hadn’t been that long since she last dropped by. Still, a niggling sense of discomfort accompanied the view.

Every time she visits, she remembers the first time she ever did, and a peculiar feeling would hit her fresh: this acute awareness that she was a visitor, that she didn’t quite belong. Callum’s folks did their best to make it their own, but the house was an old, stately thing. Shucking off decades of history wasn’t an easy feat, not when it was seeped into the house’s grand old walls, not with the ghosts lingering in its many nooks.

His stepdad came from old blood. _Old money._ Callum told her once with a sheepish laugh as they ascended the creaky stairs. Rayla had run her palms over the polished wooden banister introspectively, taken in by the sight of him against the backdrop of unfamiliar portraits. Once upon a time, she drew a little comfort in the knowledge that at some point, Callum must’ve felt just as out of place. 

* * *

Rayla’s shoes squeak against the floor as she repositions herself. Her legs were still a little wobbly from the earlier bout of exertion. Truth be told,  he needs grounding right now in more ways than one.

”Y’know, I wouldn’t have needed to climb through the window if _someone_ had answered the door,” she says accusingly as she makes quick work of her laces.

“Whoops, sorry about that. I heard you, but Mr X was on my tail like Bait at a dog park.”

”Mr X? I’m not even gonna pretend I know what you’re on about.” Rayla sighs as she toes off one sneaker, then the other.

“It’s a boss, Rayla! Y’know, from one of the most iconic horror games of all time.” Callum lets out an exaggeratedly disappointed sigh of his own.

 _Right_ , she thinks with a roll of her eyes. She laces her fingers together and stretches her arms above her head to ease up some knots. As if she was supposed to understand what the hell _that_ meant. ”Wish I spoke nerd, sometimes,” she deadpans.

Callum sighs wistfully. “I wish you did, too.”

“Watch it, wise guy,” Rayla grouses before darting forward to give his shoulder a halfhearted punch.

Callum laughs and rubs half-heartedly at the spot. “Okay, okay. Watching it. But… yeah. I figured you’d come after the heads-up from Ez. He sent a pic of you crashing Ava’s birthday party.”

He slides his phone to her.

Rayla squints down at the picture. There’s something strangely artful about the throng of action. Props to Ezran for making a snapshot resemble the composition of a renaissance painting. Try as she might though, Rayla can’t seem to spot herself. Ugh, it’s like she’s playing Where’s Wally, except she most certainly was not wearing a striped shirt.

Callum chances a glance her way before deciding to toss her a bone.

“You’re the white blur there on the right.”

“Huh!” Rayla’s surprised she hadn’t noticed it before. She clucks her tongue. “He’s really… captured my likeness,” she says of the white blur.

“I know, right?” Callum laughs. “Call it a hunch, but I think a bunch of other party peeps saw you, too.

Of course, they did.

Rayla’s cheeks feel hot. She lets out an audible groan and slaps a hand to her face so loud she swears the sound echoes off the walls. Riding the momentum of the force, she tilts her head back until her whole body thuds against Callum’s bed frame. Well, wasn’t life just grand!

“Y’know, Rayla—” he goes on, voice lilting playfully. He’s either unperturbed about her total mortification, or enjoying it a bit too much. She wouldn’t put it past him. “I think you might just become a local cryptid. Imagine: joining the same illustrious hall-of-fame ranks as Mothman…”

When she finally looks at her lil shit of a best friend, it’s through the gaps in her splayed fingers. “I… what,” Rayla scoffs. “You’re speaking English, but all I hear is gibberish.”

Callum laughs and elbows her side. “I guess that’s Katolian English for you, huh?”

She elbows him back. “I don’t think that’s it. Feels like you’re just being a nerd.”

“Nerd’s a language, remember? Keep up.”

“Ugh!” Rayla does this so often in his presence that sometimes, it feels like her vocabulary’s shrinking.

Twice now, her head thuds against his bed frame. She hears a suspiciously sickening squelch come from the monitor, and firmly decides to look out the window instead, at the slate grey clouds floating past a blue summer sky.

…She wishes Claudia was here.

She wants to text her right now and commiserate about all this nonsense. What would Claudia say about all this? Possibly something along the lines of how Rayla’s invented a whole different language. Ughlish, she’d dub it, or maybe Scoffish.

…Okay, the name thing? Definitely a work in progress.

...Spend enough time with someone and they find a home somewhere between your head and your heart. Rayla dips her head down and frowns, unsure why the thought makes her feel so sad. Her chest hurts all over again. And now, she remembers the idiot thing thing she did, too. Why’d she have to go out and carelessly toss her phone?

Ugh…. what had she been thinking? The problem, in all honesty, lay in how she hadn’t been doing much thinking at the time.

 _Think of something else,_ Rayla thinks. _Anything else. Silver linings, and all that bull._ What was the silver lining here, exactly?

She turns away from the window. On the screen before them, some dirty blond fella’s stalking stiffly down a dark corridor, gun in hand. Looks like he’s lost the crazed mob on his tail. Well, y'know what? Good for him.

“Get on with it. What’s this Mothman? Another superhero or somethin’?” Rayla hazards with a wave of her hand, eager for a distraction. _Mothman_. _Huh_. Maybe it was another nickname for Claudia’s cranky, stick-up-the-butt dad. She had thought butterflies were more his schtick, but honestly? Who could tell, with that guy.

“Rayla…” Callum gives her a pitiful look. “Rayla, Rayla, Rayla. Oh ye of little cryptid knowledge.”

Rayla blatantly ignores that conversation thread, gestures vaguely instead to the fast food spread. “Bit early for lunch, don’t you think?”

He wisely lets her steer him to another topic. They’ve dodged a bullet there, the both of them. ”It’s brunch. I figured: why not kill two birds with one stone?”

He doesn’t put down his game controller, just flicks his head in the vague direction of his half-eaten meal. “Want some?”

“Gimme that.”

Rayla needs no further invitation. She chows down on a fistful of chips, washes it down with half a cup of coke. Her hunger’s caught up to her. Maybe she just wants something to fill the emptiness.

(It’s a bit of both, if she’s being honest. The truth always lies somewhere in-between.)

“Woah, ok. Try not to choke,” Callum says, halfheartedly cringing, wholeheartedly laughing.

Rayla rolls her eyes. As if she was going to listen to Callum—of all people—talk about moderation. She takes instead to draining the rest of his coke through the straw. On the screen, blondie's awkwardly poking around a dank, grey room. _Wow, that sure looks fun,_ she thinks, a little snide. When the loud, guzzling sound abates, Callum speaks again.

“So, uh… how’s life? I’m failing at this puzzle here, as you can see,” he says as he continues fiddling with the buttons of his controller. “But what’s up on your end? Heard you’ve been running wild around the neighbourhood.”

She almost chokes. She chases down the lump of chips in her throat with another mouthful of coke, then slaps a palm to her thigh, more embarrassed than affronted. “I haven’t been ’running wild’!” She makes the effort to put the last bit in air quotes.

“Sure, Rayla,” Callum says, voice calm and expression so infuriatingly sober, it takes all she has to not murder him on the spot with her bare, salt-dusted hands. Her fingerprints are all over the place. On a scale of one to ten, the assassination would not have ended well.

“Ugh!” Rayla scoffs for the umpteenth time before crossing her arms, fuming. Her face is red from the earlier run. Maybe part of it’s due to the sun, too. That’s her cover story and she’s sticking to it. “I hate you so much. This is like when you thought I was a vigilante. Like… what’s his name? Bushtit or something.“

“Wha—! His name is Robin. And I’ll have you know—” he says, tone unnecessarily indignant—”a part of me still believes that.“

“Let me guess: the same part that believes in Santa Claus?“ Rayla jibes, before levelling him with a condescending little smirk.

She knows the topic is a sore spot for him. She’s not proud of it, but she won’t regret drudging it up now, after everything he’s put her through today.

“Let me live, Rayla,“ Callum says. And it’s to his credit that he doesn’t flinch.

There’s a guttural, kinda squelchy sound coming from the telly. Rayla looks up from the food. Plastered on the screen in all caps, with a glowing red font are the words: “YOU DIED”.

So much for fringe man’s fun little romp. Looks like the zombies finally got to him. 

“Dang it!” Callum says, setting the controller aside before reaching for some chips himself. “So… do you wanna talk about why you crashed a doggy birthday?” Callum asks imploringly, his knees knocking lightly against hers.

The question catches Rayla off guard. When she looks into his eyes, she’s startled again by the wrong shade of green. It's like a trigger. She can't help how yearning leaps from her heart to her mind. She can't help wishing that Claudia was here instead. _Don’t be daft_ , Rayla reprimands herself. What good would that do now? She struck a match to the forest, remember? All that’s left is for it to burn.

Mortification hits like a sucker-punch to the gut. It’s suddenly too much. She has to look away. Her gaze drops down to the floor, where her toes are curling against the elastic-cotton of her socks. It feels like every ounce of her being wants to curl in on itself and hide away. It feels like she dropped her heart in the middle of a labyrinth and has no chance of getting it back.

She doesn’t... She doesn't want any of this. 

She wants to be halfway across the world with an ocean between them, but being brave is all she knows. The front she puts up is a weight she's grown used to hefting. A comforting weight: heavy as a great shield, stifling as one, too.

That's what she tells herself when she steels herself long enough to fix him with a steely, piercing look.

That's what she tells herself though the answer she gives wavers a bit by the end.

...There's a difference between acting brave and being brave. It's a bitter revelation, slowly dawning in her mind.

Her eyes dart towards the still-open window.

Maybe she shouldn’t have bothered with her shoes after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's chapter two, folks! I've planned major plot points, but the rest of the story's pretty up in the air so feel free to share your thoughts and bounce ideas on stuff.


	3. Love Hurts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s a piquant surprise in any case, when Rayla reaches a point where she stops thinking of Claudia as her best friend’s ex-girlfriend, or even a friend of a friend. It gets to a point where she’s just Claudia in Rayla’s mind.
> 
> The sun is scorching, the air is dry and even an idle breeze feels warm against her skin. What’s she doing cooped up indoors, brain baking as she pours over trigonometry equations? A better question would be: what’s she doing here with Claudia, of all people?

Elbows on the table, Rayla slumps forward with a sigh. She rests her cheek against a palm as she drums her fingers restlessly against the wood. 

The sun is scorching, the air is dry and even an idle breeze feels warm against her skin. What’s she doing cooped up indoors, brain baking as she pours over trigonometry equations?

A better question would be: what’s she doing here with Claudia, of all people?

The girl in question is sitting right beside her, seemingly unfazed and clacking away on her laptop, doing… whatever it is she’s doing. The sticker clad thing’s been whirring noisily for a good ten minutes now. Rayla hasn’t breathed a word of this to anyone, but she’s taking a bet out about which of them will be first to keel over in this terrible weather.

Honestly? Her money’s not on the machine.

Rayla turns back to her set of questions, pencil tapping against paper as she tries again to solve sin(β). She gets a few lines down before running smack into a dead end. _Ugh_. Her head’s throbbing. She reaches for her sad, nubby eraser and winds up rubbing so hard the paper creases, almost tears.

Rayla lets out a long, frustrated noise as she clenches her hand around the unfortunate stub.

Why’s β gotta be such a bitch?

Rayla startles at the sensation when Claudia lays her hand over her first. It’s enough of a shock to make her ease her vicelike grip. Looks like Claudia’s finally taking pity on her. It’s just as well. Rayla had been a hair’s breadth away from scrunching the paper up into a ball and tossing it into a bin.

“Trig’s a little… tricky,” Claudia says. ”But it’s not that bad when you get the hang of it. Think of it like a jigsaw puzzle! When you get stuck, try approaching it from a different angle.”

Maybe that’d help if I was even the slightest bit a fan of jigsaws, Rayla wants to say. But she doesn’t, because Claudia doesn’t deserve that level of snark.

“Ugh, you’re starting to sound like Callum,” Rayla settles on saying instead. There's a dip in the grain here, a little notch, a little imperfection that her eyes can't help but linger on...

“When you said you’d help with homework, I thought you’d… y’know… Help me.“

Claudia rolls her eyes.

“I said I’d tutor you. That means meeting you halfway. So… try for a bit, let me know if you get stuck, and I’ll point you in the right direction.”

Tapping a nail-polished finger against her chin—Black. What a surprise—Claudia’s expression grows a little more pensive. “And… no, you can’t keep getting it wrong on purpose so I’ll show you all the right answers. Soren did that once, and… okay, props to him on that, but it’s not going to work the second time around.”

Rayla lets out a long-suffering sigh. She hasn’t actually met the guy in person, but… goddamnit, Soren.

“Chin up,” Claudia says cheerily as she nudges her gently with an elbow. She takes a closer look at Rayla’s answers before gracing her with a small, sympathetic smile. ”You’re on the right track. Try using a double-angle identity and go from there.”

Rayla grumbles under her breath, but heeds Claudia all the same. She asks for help the next time she hits another dead-end. It goes on like that for a bit and they fall into the rhythm of companionable silence. Claudia, to her credit, is patient and articulate in her explanations: major points in the tutoring department. 

* * *

Rayla angles her head back and relishes the satisfying pop as she stretches, limber as a cat across Claudia’s couch when she’s finally done. Whoever came up with trigonometry must’ve been an evil genius _and_ an awful sadist, she thinks with a yawn. She can’t wait for the day she’ll be done with math for real.

“Thanks,” Rayla says gratefully as she accepts the cold bottle of water Claudia hands her.

It’s a hundred and eleven degrees out, according to the thermostat on the living room wall. That’s like… what? That’s forty-four going on forty-five degrees if we’re going by the metric system. Rayla lays the bottled water over her forehead, then rolls it down, over her eyes. This heat wave’s the worst. Not worse than math, but… pretty high up on the shit list, as these things go.

“Y’know, I don’t think this counts as a fair trade for a whole evening of garden work,” Rayla deadpans.

Rayla yelps and jumps up at the cold jolt at her neck. When she recomposes herself enough to glare indignantly at Claudia, the other girl’s reclining languidly on the armrest of the couch. There’s a smug, playful smile spread across her face, and another cold bottle of water in her hand. “Hey, I did throw in a ham sandwich.”

“Wha-! How generous! Maybe I’ll follow your lead with some throwing of my own!“ Rayla exclaims, face red as she holds the chilled bottle in her hand like a throwing knife.

Claudia’s head rears back a bit. An immaculate eyebrow arches as she stares, caught off guard. Her smile, though still smug, is now a little squiggly with uncertainty. “You wouldn’t…”

”Try me,” Rayla seethes, trying her best to telepathically channel the most intimidating person she knows—Runaan’s boyfriend on the once-in-a-blue-moon chance he gets mad pissed at something. She straightens her spine, tilts her head up to glare challengingly at Claudia. With the neck of the bottle in her hand, Rayla slaps the other end against her palm like a blackjack.

Tension fills the air as they hold each other’s gaze: Verdant green against stormy lilac, neither willing to back down.

It kinda plays out like an old spaghetti western. No one blinks and there’s a lot of intimidating squinting involved. It’s basically already set in a desert town. All they need is some tumbleweed rolling in the background to top it off.

The mood completely shifts when the back door swings open without warning and a tall, blond boy lumbers through, his arms laden with grocery bags.

“Soren?” Claudia exclaims.

That should’ve been enough warning to clue Rayla into the fact that they weren’t victims of a home invasion or anything like that, but it’s too late. Her body acts too fast for her mind to reel her in. On reflex, she’s already lobbed the water bottle at him.

“Hm?” Soren says, attention perked. He shifts his weight just so and manages to snag the bottle in one of the paper bags, but the impact’s too great. Like a torpedo, it crashes through the bottom of the bag, and its contents spill to the floor like a toppled house of cards. 

* * *

 “My avocados are bruised, Claudia! As pranks go, that was low,” Soren yells from one floor down. “Even for you!”

The last part comes out muffled when Claudia firmly closes her bedroom door behind them.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Says the guy who threw a skunk into my room,” Claudia mumbles, blowing a raspberry as she reaches for the AC remote.

She places the laptop on her bed before flopping down on it herself. Her long dark hair fans out across her pastel sheets. She blows an errant lock away from her face then flashes Rayla a commiserating grin. “Siblings, right? Love ‘em, hate ‘em, skunk ‘em. ”

“I wouldn’t know,” Rayla says simply as she shrugs from her perch near the door.

“Only child, huh?”

“Yup.”

“Hmm… I’m not gonna lie,” Claudia says as she reaches for a stuffed toy. “Sometimes I envy you. But I love that lug. Just… do me a favor and don’t let him know I said that.”

“Don’t worry.” Rayla chuckles. ”Your secret’s safe with me.”

Claudia smiles in thanks.

It’s an interesting sight, to say the least: Claudia with her hair tousled and clothes awry as she tucks her chin over the head of a goofy-looking stuffed toy. It’s… cute. If Rayla ignores how improbable it all is, she’s cute. Rayla looks at her, and part of her wants to smile along, and another part wants to tease her relentlessly for cuddling a stuffed toy at their age.

Rayla sucks in a sharp breath and directs her gaze firmly away. It’s not an emotion she’s used to experiencing. It feels, for lack of a better way to put it, really fecking weird.

Now it's like the floorboards are the most fascinating thing in the world. Which... for one thing: it’s ridiculous!

Rayla’s not scared and far from shy. It’s not her first time in someone else’s bedroom: not by a long shot. But it’s the first time it just kind of… happened, unplanned. No projects or movie nights or birthday parties on the agenda. No agenda, full stop. Rayla’s never felt so out of her element.

“Thanks for helping me one-up him, too,” Claudia says with a laugh. The colourful toy plush flops to the side as she fiddles with her hands, like she’s counting something. “I think that puts me two pranks ahead. Or is it one?”

Rayla hums in acknowledgement. At least one of them looks comfortable, Rayla thinks tersely. Her own arms are folded in front of her. She’s not quite sure what to do with them, or where to stand, or what to say.

She returns to taking stock of Claudia’s room. She had expected… Rayla isn’t sure what she had expected, really. Way more black, for one. But it’s surprisingly… ordinary. The walls are a pale, gentle shade of lavender. There’s a wooden desk, a bookshelf stocked to the brim, a wardrobe and a bed. It’s… surprisingly spartan.

“I kinda figured your room would be more…” Rayla snaps her fingers, trying to find the right word.

“Glamorous?” Claudia hazards, body shooting upright with a teasing grin.

“Ridiculous,” Rayla counters in a deadpan.

Claudia slumps back against fluffy pillows with a pout, and Rayla masks her smirk against the palm of her hand. Familiar territory feels comfortable; feels good. Snark? Snark she can do.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Claudia sighs exaggeratedly, playing along. “Feel free to come back in October if you’re looking for skeletons.”

“Sure they’re not just stuffed somewhere in your closet?” Rayla says as she leans back against Claudia’s desk.

“Perish the thought, Rayla. I’m a professional,” Claudia says with a wink.

“Uh huh.” That was one word she’d never think to describe Claudia as.

Something ends up catching Rayla’s eye as she looks around. It’s a collage of sorts, a bunch of framed photos tacked up on a wall. She zeroes in on the most out-of-place thing at the outskirts of it.

It’s not a photo at all, or a painting, even, but a watercolour drawing of a butterfly, its wings a brilliant shade of blue. There’s no artist mark, but there’s something oddly familiar about it.

“Someone has a good eye,” Claudia says, the bed creaking as she sits up, stuffed toy perched comfortably on her lap. “It was a birthday gift from Callum.”

Rayla levels her with a skeptical look. “Callum drew an anatomically-accurate insect for your birthday?”

“Yup.”

“And you had it framed and put up… on your wall?”

“That’s the gist of it, yeah.” Claudia shrugs and smiles toothily. “It’s one of my favorite bugs.”

“That can’t be a thing,” Rayla says, crossing her arms, entirely unconvinced. Because that’s just ridiculous. People have favorite insects now?

“It’s totally a thing, I swear! There’s an online quiz you can take and everything. Here, lemme just… pull it up for you,” Claudia says, her hands scrabbling to flip open her laptop.

“No! That’s fine. Forget it. Ugh…” Rayla slaps a hand to her forehead and drags it slowly down her face. “I can’t believe you guys my friends.”

“Aw, that just means you have good taste, Rayla Mc-Judgy-Face,” Claudia rebuts cheekily, chortling all the while.

Rayla scoffs and levels a judgemental stare at the bug.

“Wait a minute… hold up!” The bed creaks as Claudia gets up. And all too soon, she’s at Rayla’s side.

Rayla startles at her sudden action. She sees blue, then green. There’s this glimmer in Claudia’s eyes before she casually lays her elbow on Rayla’s shoulder. Woah. Wait... Claudia’s… taller than her? Rayla has never been so viscerally aware of this fact. Honestly… she had always thought the opposite was true.

When Claudia leans in to speak into Rayla’s ear, her voice is smug edging on haughty. “So… we’re friends now, huh?”

Red creeps up the side of Rayla’s neck to her ears at the feel of breath ghosting against her skin. The AC’s on, but it somehow feels even more stifling now than before.

“I don’t… I don’t remember saying that,” Rayla hastily objects as he crosses her arms, suddenly defensive though she doesn't shrug Claudia off.

“Well, I do,” Claudia says as she taps the tip of Rayla’s nose with a finger. “You’ve spoken it into existence. There’s no take backs.”

It’s all Rayla can do to blink rapidly at the retreating digit. Suddenly flustered, she turns to look down at the floor again.

“Oh my god…” It’s all Rayla manages to get in edgewise. 

* * *

Things calm down (that is to say, Rayla calms down) when Claudia finally stops teasing, and instead diverts her energy into wheedling Rayla into taking the bug quiz. Though by then Claudia’s already coined the incident Friendgate.

Claudia rattles off the questions and Rayla gives her answers as she checks out Claudia’s books. Love Amongst The Dragons? Sounds like some cheesy novella. The quiz itself: it’s so dumb. ...She’s definitely making Runaan do it when she gets back.

Eventually, Rayla finds herself back again, facing the collage. Rayla tilts her head up as she roams from frame-to-frame, like she’s tracing the roots of a tree up to its heart.

Back to matters at hand, in the middle of it is a family picture: two adults and two kids, everybody in their Sunday best. The boy and girl look a little fidgety, but they’re positively beaming at the camera. Rayla’s gaze lingers on the figure with the long dark hair. She’d recognise that smile anywhere.

“There’s a story behind that one,” Claudia says with a laugh and a smile when Rayla turns to look at her.

“Yeah?” Rayla’s eyes dart questioningly to Claudia’s face, but Claudia’s gaze is firmly fixed on the photo. There’s a faraway look in her eyes, like she’s a conduit, channeling memories from long ago.

“Yeah, we argued all the way on the drive over to the studio. Y'see, Soren skunked my room, so I—“ Claudia snorts—“put gum in his hair when he fell asleep. The barber gave him an undercut to even it out, and he got so mad; thought he looked so dumb. Dad got even more mad, and the both of us were grounded for like… half a year.”

“Guess that explains the pranks.”

“Well, that’s how it all started.” Claudia grins. “Now, it’s just tradition.”

“Hmm... He kept the undercut. That tradition, too?”

Claudia lets out a burst of goofy laughter. “I guess you could say that. My guess is he took it to heart when Mom said it made him look handsome.”

“That seems about right.” Rayla says, judging by what little she knows of him. “You don’t seem all that mad in the photo,” Rayla says with a small smile as she tilts her chin up at the frame.

“Oh. Yeah… We have mom to thank for that, too. She took us aside before the shoot and promised us cake if we behaved.”

“What—A whole cake?”

“The works,” Claudia winks. “Vanilla frosting and toasted marshmallow filling between a six-layered chocolate cake. She snuck us a slice after bedtime. We were supposed to eat a slice every day for dessert , but Soren and me polished it off when they were at work.” Claudia chuckles. “Good times.”

“That must’ve been a sight.” Rayla says. It sounds delicious, sure, but her mind can’t help but conjure up a picture of two cake-bloated kids. Rayla’s next words spill out before she has the chance to reel herself back in. “That can’t be healthy.”

Claudia makes a considering noise.“…Maybe not, but it was totally worth it.” At the sight of Rayla’s disapproving, skeptical look, Claudia back-pedals. “It’s okay, Rayla! We don’t eat a lot of cake these days. Mom’s…” Claudia worries at her lip. “We don’t really see much of her anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Rayla apologises hastily. Gah! When will she learn to bite back her tongue? “Is she—”

“Hey, don’t worry,” Claudia says ruefully. “She’s okay. She’s probably better off now.” She lets out a heavy sigh, then folds her arms behind her back.

“There were good times too, but… our folks used to fight a lot. Sometimes it felt like the only times they didn’t were when they were scolding us instead. So… yeah, we got into the habit of getting in trouble a lot.” Claudia admits. She lets out a nervous chuckle. “It sounds weird, I know. But I guess it made sense when we were younger.”

It’s different for her, but Rayla understands all the same. There was a time it felt like reality could bend around her under sheer force of will. She remembers bounding about Runaan’s workplace when she was younger and challenging every adult who’d tease her. In her mind, it was a competition. Maybe if she beat enough of them, they’d complain to Runaan, and he’d ring up her parents to brag about it.

She had hoped for praise.

She would’ve settled for their chastisement.

She had missed them dearly, then. She misses them, even now, despite everything.

“No,” Rayla says, her voice soft, and earnest, and wistful. “I get it.”

Claudia tilts her head up and away from her stuffed toy. They meet each other’s gaze, and share a moment in time. In that impossible space measured by heartbeats, they peel back the layers and find something like a bridge between their hurts.

In the background, the AC is working hard, doing its best to keep the heat at bay. Beyond Claudia’s bedroom, a neighbour’s out watering the lawn. Sitting cross-legged on her bed with a stuffed toy in her lap, Claudia sets aside her laptop and finds the strength to continue.

“Y’know, my dad can get kind of… intense. There were good times, too, but it got pretty bad at one point, with all the fighting. One day, my mom took us aside and told us... that she was going to her family in Del Bar. She said we needed to pick who we wanted to stay with, but when Soren picked my dad, she chose for us instead.”

Rayla thinks of her parents and bites the tip of her tongue. She’s gripping the edges of the desk hard. She’ll grip it harder still. Her hates how her eyes sting. She hates how she chokes a little when next she speaks. "Aren’t you mad at her? For leaving you all behind?”

“I was…” Claudia says softly, the words trail off as she tucks wayward strands of her long hair behind her ear. She exhales audibly, then sets aside the stuffed toy, too. It's just her now. “Mostly, I was just sad. Some days, it was like we were out on the open sea, trying to stay afloat. Even when it felt like we were drowning, at least… we had each other.”

Claudia sniffles and blinks rapidly: once, twice, then again. Rayla’s eyes dart about the room, but there aren’t any tissues in sight. She despairs; draws closer to Claudia, hovers ineffectually by her side.

“Y’know, I used to think that Mom was like the rudder of our boat. She always knew what to do or say to make things better. It was like magic. But… I don’t know. Magic takes hard work to pull off, too. I think she needed to leave. For herself. To be happy.”

What can Rayla say to that? Her tongue feels like sandpaper. If Ezran was here, maybe he'd know what to do. If Callum was here, maybe he'd know what to say.

Rayla takes a breath to steady herself. She isn't them. She can't be. The only shoes she'd fit into are her own, anyhow. And that's okay. So what if they aren't here now? It's her that Claudia decided to open up with. 

“I’m… sorry you had to go through that,” Rayla manages a weak reply. She sits down beside Claudia and gingerly lays a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault,“ Claudia says, turning towards her with a smile. Her cheeks are a little pink. Her eyeliner's a little smudged. She’s so close, Rayla can even see the tiny pearls of tears catch in her eyelashes. “Life’s just… like that, sometimes. I’m not mad at her anymore. Maybe… Maybe we need to be strong for ourselves, before we can be strong for others. I don't know... Life sucks sometimes, but it doesn't always have to. Like now. Thanks, Rayla. For hearing me out. I think I needed that.”

Rayla’s heart clenches at the sight. There’s something terribly wrong with her. She feels her heart stall in the span of one breath, then hasten to mach speed in the next exhale. She blames the open-book expression on Claudia’s face. She blames the rueful smile and the openness in those clear green eyes.

Rayla thinks of her parents, wherever in the world they are, and… it hurts. It hurts, but she doesn’t want to think about them. Not now anyway. Her heart feels too full for anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it! What're your thoughts on this slice-o-life story so far? Too fast? Too slow? I'm pretty curious. 
> 
> Let me know if you have a preference for what you'd like updated next! I have a few ideas, but no time for all of them right now. Take care, y'all!


	4. Comme Ça

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The unpredictability of it, the constant flux of them—it’s almost exhausting. Almost, but not quite. It’s exciting, too. 
> 
> When all is said and done, she enjoys Claudia’s company. Rayla knows this acutely. She knows she’d be lying if she tells herself otherwise.

That memory of her first time in Claudia’s room stands out so vividly in Rayla’s mind. If she closes her eyes, she can almost relive it. That’s the truth of it, and so is this: despite everything they had been through, she comes to think of that one time as an outlier in the weeks that follow.

It’s… not a hard conclusion to arrive at. Of the sparse times she’d been roped into more intimate social settings, the first time often marks the last, too. So why would this be any different? That’s what she thinks in bed one night, clutching her phone as she squints at the tiny screen, thoughts abuzz with the noise of internal debate.

It’s a different story though, the second time around. It’s always a different story when it comes to Claudia. That’s a lessons she’s slowly coming to learn.

…It wasn’t planned, or anything like that. Rainfall here is rare, and getting caught so blatantly in a downpour? Rarer still. They’re walking home after school one day when the dark cloud tailing them abruptly decides that it's the perfect time for rain. Ragging on the newest earworm pop song, they share startled, doe-eyed looks as they’re pelted by the first thick, heavy drops.

It doesn’t happen all at once. Somehow, that makes it scarier, the way the pitter-patter rhythm builds to a crescendo like the war drums of an advancing army, hot on their heels.

Instinct wins out above all else. Without thinking, Rayla grabs Claudia’s hand and they’re off running. Sneakers and boots thunder against pavement as they peel off down the quickly dampening sidewalk, their yelling and cussing drowned out by the sound of rain.

Let’s face it, when pit against nature’s wrath, there’s not much to do but seek shelter. There had been little time to plan an escape route though, and they had been walking towards Claudia’s place anyway, so… go figure.

 

* * *

Claudia’s heaving and panting as she sags in relief against the door. She bolts it shut so decisively that Rayla can't help but chuckle. There’s an idea of her in Rayla’s head, and… well, this is certainly different from what she’s come to expect. Decisive franticness is a new look on her. Rayla can’t yet decide how she feels about it. 

Claudia’s shoulder-length hair hangs clumped and matted as the rest of their clothing.  She blows a breathless sort of raspberry and pushes a long, purple-streaked lock out of her face before meeting Rayla's gaze. They speak without words and laugh together: giddy and incredulous, at their slipshod escape and current predicament.

In the aftermath, Rayla lets her backpack drop to the floor with a heavy, sodden sound. She wiggles her toes and grimaces. Her sneakers are soaked all through to her socks, and her jeans hang heavy in a squidgy sort of way. She scoots closer to a still-winded Claudia, and toes off her shoes before wringing water out of her t-shirt and over the welcome mat. 

When she’s done peeling her socks off, Rayla turns her attention back to Claudia. The taller girl hadn't done much else but put down her satchel. Her head tips against the door as she side-eyes Rayla, all while drawing deep gulps of air. Rayla rolls her eyes at her. She’s probably worried about all the water Rayla’s trekking in. 

Mostly though, Claudia seems engrossed with simply trying to stay upright. Claudia looks, if Rayla’s being honest, about as sturdy right now as a tower of jello. 

“Hey.” Rayla gently nudges Claudia with an elbow. “You alright?”

“Yeah. Just—” Claudia lets out a shaky exhale—“need a minute to catch my breath.”

“You’ve had a minute. More than a few, matter of fact,” Rayla says curtly, not about to pull any punches. “Don't tell me you’re failing P.E. or something.”

Claudia makes a tight-lipped, strangled sound in the back of her throat. “I’m not,” Claudia says, too quiet and too fast, and only after a heavy beat of silence. "Well, most of the time.”

Rayla stares at the color dusting Claudia’s cheeks as she sheepishly averts her gaze. When Claudia tucks rain-slick hair behind an ear, the silver studs of her earrings glint in the low light of the house. She traces the path of a raindrop down the sharp curve of a jaw, right up to the point where it drips down...

Rayla blinks out of her stupor and looks pointedly away. She puts a hand over her mouth and across her cheek, unsure of why she suddenly feels so warm.  _W-What the hell was that?_ She’d known Claudia for… a while now, and  _this_ ? This is the thing she’s embarrassed about? Not the framed bug picture, the stuffed toys, or even the time she almost walked into a ditch?!

The palm over Rayla’s face moves to her forehead. She isn’t angry, just… ugh, she doesn't know anymore! Indignant? Frustrated? Confused? Brow furrowed, Rayla looks pensively across the length of the house and tries in vain to shake the feeling that she’d just been privy to something she wasn't supposed to see. 

There’s an idea of her in Rayla’s mind stacked like a wall of bricks. And each time they meet, each time they talk, Claudia tears it down. She builds something else up, and that gets knocked down too. It happens again and again, creation and destruction moving in a cycle, hand-in-hand. 

Rayla doesn’t know whether to feel excited or angry sometimes. The unpredictability of it, the constant flux of them—it’s almost exhausting. Almost, but not quite. It’s exciting, too. 

When all is said and done, she enjoys Claudia’s company. Rayla knows this acutely. She knows she’d be lying if she tells herself otherwise.

In the background, the heavy drone of rain carries on, unceasing and unmindful to the storm brewing in her belly like a tempest in a teapot.

* * *

Rayla doesn’t notice she’s spacing until Claudia steps back into view with a fluffy towel draped over a shoulder and a fresh set of clothes in hand.

“Bathroom’s upstairs. Second door to the left,” Claudia says cheerily, nudging Rayla in the right direction. “Hop to it! Wouldn’t want you catching a cold, now.”

“Oh? Naw, it’s okay.” Rayla successfully resists Claudia with minimal effort. “I don’t live that far off. Just lend me a brolly and I’ll be out of your hair. “

Claudia voices her displeasure with a whine. “Rayla… come on.” She digs her heels into the drenched floor mat and ups her efforts at... gentle persuasion, shall we say. “Have you looked outside? At the crazy downpour, I mean.”

“Meh.  Been through worse.” 

She can feel Claudia’s palms splay against her shoulder blades. If she means to strong-arm Rayla up the stairs, her stance for it is all wrong. 

“Wha-? Did you live in tornado country or something?”

“Naw, but we had snow storms.”

Claudia grunts and redoubles her efforts. “How are you even alive?”

Rayla thinks about how mean it’d be to side-step Claudia and send her tumbling across the nice, parquet flooring. It’d be  _so_ easy...

(Taking the high road sure sucks sometimes.)

“I’ve my ways,” Rayla says. She turns behind to smirk at the dumbfounded look on Claudia’s face. “What, are you gonna keep at this all day?” 

That, at least, gets Claudia to stop pushing. 

It doesn’t dawn on Rayla that she’s called her victory too early, until it’s too late. She startles at the feel of Claudia’s head bunting the back of her neck. Rayla shivers, not from the cold, but from the shock of sensation shooting to her brain when Claudia lets out a theatrical sigh.

“Wow. Rude much.” Claudia lightly swats Rayla’s back, and Rayla would snigger if she wasn’t so flustered. She clears her throat instead. 

“Just hand me a brolly, Claudia,” Rayla says as she extends a hand behind her. What she receives instead is the stack of clothing. Huh. Ok. Rayla hums, amused. She hadn’t pegged Claudia capable of pulling a bait-and-switch.

“Look, I don’t know about you, but I can’t—on good conscience—let you go like this. I mean the rain’s so thick no one’s even driving. Do you know what this is?” Claudia says, stepping away to rap her knuckles against a windowpane. 

“No.” Rayla crosses her arms with a handful of clean clothes. “But I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”

“Well… yup. See this? It’s the  _perfect_ setting for a creepy clown attack.“

“You really… gonna lead with that?” Rayla scoffs. “It’s just a movie, Claudia! The clown’s not… real, for one! It's not gonna ‘get’ me.” 

“Tut-tut-tut. That’s what they all say. Then they go out into the rain and… bam!” Claudia smacks a fist into an open palm. “Attack of the clowns. Clown-town pound-down…” 

Claudia continues, undeterred by Rayla’s exasperated groan, maybe even a little goaded on by it.

Rayla scoffs. “You’re humming the wrong theme song. That’s Jaws.”

“Sharks? Clowns? They can all smell fear, Rayla. And y’know how it goes after it gets you. Your ghost is gonna come back all cryptic and creepy with your cute accent like… _wooo_!” Claudia wiggles her fingers in the air… threateningly as she continues her ghostly spiel. ” _Claudia,_ _you shouldn’t have skipped leg day and let me walk out the door!_ ”

Rayla’s ears are burning. She’s getting second-hand embarrassment just looking at Claudia. “Ok, first off, I don’t sound anything like that! 

“Fair enough, but you have to keep in mind that it’s not really you. It’s the clown’s impersonation of you. That’s… the lore, y’know?” Claudia says, all to seriously.

“Oh my god…” Rayla can’t even look at her. “I don’t… how do I even deal with this?” She covers her face with her hands, but it’s just not enough. Is it too late now to meander out into a storm drain and get offed by a demon clown? Maybe it's worth dying just to end this weird-friggin conversation.

It takes a bit for Rayla to calm down, but she’s remarkably composed when next she speaks. “If I stay, you have to promise to never talk about clowns ever again.” 

“Phew. I thought you short-circuited there, for a sec. Wait...” Claudia double-takes. “Like… forever?”

“At least for today. You gotta  _swear_.”

“That’s… pretty generous. Alright, then. It’s a deal!” Claudia agrees with a clap of her hands. “Come on, up those stairs. Chop-chop! Before you catch a cold. I’ll go brew us some coffee.”

“S'alright. I’m not a big fan,” Rayla says, unsure if Claudia hears, busy as she is now bustling about the kitchen.

Rayla stalks up the stairs without another word of protest. The smile on her face is begrudging. The sigh she heaves is half-hearted. She’s not used to conceding. It helps that it feels more akin to a draw than defeat.

* * *

Rayla peels off her wet jeans like a second skin, then follows suit with the rest of her rain-soaked clothes. She’d planned a quick shower without washing her hair, but the way it’s drying now: tangled and unruly, bristling in places like an angry hedgehog, it’d be impossible.

She steps gratefully into the warm spray of water. 

There’s no shortage of different soaps, shampoos and conditioners. She takes a whiff before settling on what to use, and ends off with a bitingly cold spray,  for the way it cools her head. 

The mirror’s fogged up from the steam. She leans closer and wipes a small portion with the towel.  She combs fingers through her damp, fair hair and regards herself: clean, pink, and mostly dry. It isn’t often that she gives in. It isn’t often she’s fussed over, either. People are their choices, aren’t they? Action and reaction folding over each other like a series of interlocking stitches. 

A question bobs up from the sea of her musings. If people are the choices they make, what does that make her, exactly?  She frowns at her reflection before stepping away, chalks it up as another day’s food for thought. 

The bath towel, Rayla drapes about her neck. The cotton shirt, she tugs over her head. The pants are a tad too long, and drag a little on the floor. They're both oversized, but super comfy, and they smell nice, too.  Clean like fresh linen and familiar, in a homey sort of way that makes her want to amble about instead of just walk.

She descends the stairs reinvigorated and oddly soothed. Music trails from the kitchen when she draws closer, as does the smell of baking.

Rayla didn’t plan on just watching in amusement as Claudia scurries from cupboard to drawer to fridge, fetching ingredients, bowls and the like. It just kind of happens. W hat can she say?  The constant surety of Claudia in motion, the joyous, frantic bustle of it makes quite a sight. She wonders if it counts as exercise. Runaan and his boyfriend marathon cooking shows sometimes, and Rayla kind of gets the appeal now. 

A new song comes on Claudia’s phone. The tune’s catchy, and familiar. It takes Rayla 0.3 seconds to recognize it as the dreaded earworm she keeps hearing around town. As if on cue, Claudia’s head starts bobbing to the beat. Before Rayla knows it, Claudia’s using the egg beater as a microphone. 

The song builds and builds, drumbeat picking up the pace as it ushers in the chorus. She's never heard Claudia sing before. Her voice, it's unabashedly excitable and raucous as the rest of her. It’s all those things, but not unappealingly so. It makes sense. It makes about as much sense as Claudia does, which is a whole lot, in a weirdly inexplicably way. 

Claudia finally notices Rayla when she turns her head, but instead of looking at all embarrassed, she has the gall to wave at Rayla to join in. 

_What does she think this is?_ Rayla thinks frantically as she shakes her head.  _A musical???_

Claudia pouts. They’ve left the first chorus behind them.

Mistake number one on Rayla’s part is making eye contact with her puppy dog eyes. Mistake number two is letting Claudia tug her over to the kitchen island. In Rayla’s defence, with one foot already in the door, sometimes it just makes more sense to step all the way through.

“Alright, alright,” Rayla concedes with a grudging smile as she takes hold of the egg beater Claudia holds out to her. “One song. Just one!“

Claudia cheers Rayla on with little whoops when she starts. Claudia’s still singing along with her as she goes to fetch two mugs from a high shelf. It’s not a long song, but Claudia’s breathless with laughter when the last beats wind down. 

“Sorry, I got a little carried away there,“ Claudia says, still giggling. The smile she wears lights up her whole face. 

“That’s a hell of an understatement, and you know it!” Rayla bristles as she brandishes the egg beater accusingly at Claudia. 

Claudia puts up both her arms. 

“Guilty. As. Charged,” she says. She has the cheek to grin widely at Rayla, and the daring to wink at her, too. “Totally worth it though. You have a really nice voice.”

Rayla rolls her eyes as she sets the egg beater down on the counter, and has to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling at the compliment. _Maybe it was worth it_ , Rayla lets herself think, and hides a smile against the palm of her hand. Maybe. As long as there are no other witnesses.

“So whats with the kitchenware? Aren't you just making coffee?” Rayla asks as she drums her fingers against the countertop. 

“Yeah, but… come on. Don’t you have the munchies after a run like that?” 

Claudia chuckles at the judgemental look Rayla gives her. 

“Relax, I didn’t go that overboard. Just warming up some leftover pie. I was gonna make some whipped cream to go with, but… whew! That sure took a lot out of me. Mind if I shower first?” She wiggles her fingers in front of Rayla. “Check it out, I’m like some Franken-raisin.” 

“Claudia… Ugh.” Rayla scrunches her face up and bats her hands away. ”Why didn’t you change earlier? Just… go quick before you catch a cold yourself. ” 

“Cool! I’ll be right back. Just make yourself at home!”

There’s the sound of footsteps scurrying up the stairs. There’s the sound of doors opening and closing with a thud. Rayla rubs the back of her neck. Make herself at home, huh? 

Rayla surveys the kitchen while humming along absently to the next song that comes on. It’s way more subdued and maudlin. Tambourines and an electric keyboard underpin the story of two people losing each other in a big city. 

She helps wash what she thinks they’ll need later: plates and forks, stuff like that. She peeps into the fridge, then spends a good minute just watching the pie warm up. She winds up looking out at the storm while curled on the couch. Even here, surrounded by four walls and with a roof above, the muted sound of rain follows, white-noise static scratching the back of her mind.

That’s when she remembers the sorry state of her backpack. 

Then she’s off like a bullet. 

Of course her phone survives. She sends a quick text telling Runaan where she is and not to worry if she’s home late, and groans at the state of her ruined textbooks. That’s when Claudia comes back down the stairs, hairdryer in hand and a triumphant expression on her face. 

* * *

Sitting cross-legged on the parquet floor, they empty the contents of their bags and take turns blow-drying their books.

Rayla flips through wrinkled pages and a year’s curriculum flutters by: topographies of countries eroded by time, excerpts of a peace treaty and black-and-white photos of soldiers returning from war. They haven’t yet gone over that bit in class, just the whys of the conflict and the thick of the fighting. 

She only catches a glimpse, but she’s struck by how some soldiers look… War-tempered and skinny as they stand tall with their war medals and missing limbs, sobbing as they reunite with family. 

There was a time not too long ago that their two countries were at war. What would it have been like if they had been born a few generations back, Rayla thinks, conscripted and made to fight? She imagines them facing each other from across a battlefield. Hunkered down in trenches as mortars rain from above. And here they are now, legs and elbows jostling as they talk about school and joke about the latest movies… 

“So,” Claudia drawls, tone expectant and filled with intent. “What’ll it take to get you to sing again?” 

Rayla chokes on nothing and accidentally drops the book she’s been holding. Scowling, she aims the hairdryer at the underside of Claudia’s chin before blasting her with a gust of hot air. 

It doesn’t phase Claudia at all. In fact, all it does is make her look like the star of a shampoo commercial.  _Ugh_.

“Stop failing P.E., then we’ll talk."

Claudia blubbers, cheeks growing pink once more as she recoils. Rayla tries not to relish Claudia’s lost composure too much, but it’s tough. It kinda feels like her karmic due after everything they’ve been through.

“-Hey, I don’t fail! Most… of the time.” Claudia bites her bottom lip, and not-so-discreetly avoids the hard stare Rayla sends her way. “I mean… it kinda depends on my run time. It’s like… my weakest event.” 

“Y’know I’m in track, right?” Rayla folds her arms. ”You’re making me look bad here.”

“Pfft!” Claudia casually leans forward to brush the tips of Rayla’s hair with her fingertips. “Have you looked in a mirror lately? I don't think that's even possible.“

If Claudia’s aim had been to fluster her, she’s succeeded spectacularly, if the heat rising up Rayla’s neck is any indication. If her aim had been to distract Rayla, she had better up her game.

“Flattery won’t make me go easy on you,” Rayla says decisively and dips her head down a tad so hopefully Claudia won’t notice the colour staining her cheeks.

Claudia lets out a raucous bark of laughter. 

“Yeesh. Tough crowd. Worth a shot though! Alright, alright,” Claudia says, and inclines her head a bit to think. “I’ll work on it. I mean, even if I don’t, my odds are 50-50, so… you know.” She claps her hands together cheerily. “Hope you’re in the mood for karaoke!” 

Rayla slaps a hand to her forehead. 

“You’re getting way too ahead of yourself,” Rayla grouses as she blasts Claudia again with the hairdryer. “And how fit you are isn’t supposed to be a game of chance!”

Claudia winces, and Rayla lets out a sigh. Back-pedalling, Rayla softens both in tone and approach. “It’s not… that bad. C’mon, I’ll even help out. The hard part is getting started.”

“Yeah?” Claudia says, smiling slyly. “Whatcha gonna do, coach? Make me run laps?” 

Claudia’s putting up a brave front with the wise cracks. Rayla’s eyebrows knit together in befuddlement. Is she trying to call Rayla’s bluff? Cause joke’s on her! Rayla’s a 100% serious here.

“Yeah. We can start Monday.”

“Ugh… You’re right. The hard part _is_ just getting started.” Claudia lets out a long, theatrical groan. Tugging Rayla’s wrist towards her, Claudia laces their hands fingers and angles the hairdryer until it presses close, nozzle pointing firmly to her heart. “Why wait? Just do it now! Put me out of my misery.”

“That’s it. We’re starting tomorrow.”

“Rayla, come on!”

Rayla’s trying really hard not to laugh right now. She’s trying really hard not to smile, too. 

It’s her eyes that give her away. It’s the tilt of her body towards Claudia, like gravity’s acting all loopy and nudging her sideways.

* * *

Rayla moves their wet clothes from the washing machine to the dryer while Claudia finishes prepping their snack. They’ve done all they can for their textbooks. They’ll never look the same again, but as Claudia put it: they’ve got more character now, and at least the words are still legible.

They sit beside each other on Claudia’s bed, blanket draped over their laps, and pillows propping them up as they browse what to watch on Claudia’s laptop. She gave Claudia shit for it earlier, but she was right, running did give Rayla the munchies. The pie really hits the spot, and the whipped cream is a nice touch. She doesn’t say much of it though, just scarfs it down in record time.

What time is it anyway? Rayla tosses a glance out the window, and rain’s still falling in heavy sheets outside. It’s a weird thing, the artificial twilight of a sky blotted out by rain. If it weren’t for the tiny clock on Claudia’s screen, Rayla wouldn’t have a clue.

Rayla squints down at the red mug when she’s done. There’s a blobby pattern in the foam, but she can’t make heads or tails of it. Maybe it’s a some rorschach test? …Maybe she’s just overthinking things. She takes a sip, bracing herself for bitter coffee, and she’s pleasantly surprised when she tastes sweetness instead. 

She has no idea what it is, but it's good. She lets the first mouthful linger for a bit before gulping the rest of it down, and basks in the warmth radiating to her limbs. Buoyed by that feeling, she sags back against the pillows as she’s drawn slowly into a lull. It’s cause of the plush pillows and soft blanket, she tells herself. It’s the huge and goofy stuffed toy Claudia has placed in her lap for ‘safekeeping’. She’s not hugging it, just keeping it in place with her arms. Yeah.

She’s on the verge of dozing off when Claudia turns to her excitedly with a grin. 

“Hey Rayla,” she says in a sing-song, teasing lilt. “Guess what I found?”

“Hm?” Rayla arches an eyebrow, as she looks at the screen. Wait, is that—?

“Claudia! I swear... Pick that movie and I’m climbing out the window!”

“You sure? I think it’s a sign! What are the odds—”

She answers Claudia with a pillow to the face.

Claudia squeals with laughter as she topples sideways. She sets the laptop down on the floor before springing back up with pillows in both hands and a haughty grin on her face. 

“Don’t start a fight you can’t finish, Rayla.”

“What? That’s my line!”  Rayla smirks as she dodges the first blow, only to get hit in the gut by the second pillow.

They flop back onto the mattress after ratifying a peace treaty. Though tense for a bit there, they both manage to come away from negotiations satisfied. The terms are such: free reign over choice barring all horror movies, and veto power on both sides. In twenty years, scholars will attribute it to chief diplomat... dragonbear...pig, or whatever it was the stuffed animal that Claudia had used as a shield.

(Rayla spent two hours last Sunday watching Callum practice for some weird model of nations thing. It wasn't pretty.)

Claudia makes little grunting noises as she blindly feels for the laptop on the floor. Come the fifth grunt, Rayla rolls her eyes and gets up to help. 

Claudia's spreadeagled on the duvet and yawning up at the ceiling when Rayla returns.  Rayla spends a good minute just looking at her without makeup and earrings in her pajamas. She has her hair up in a messy bun, and now stray strands frame her face and curl against her ear.

“What’s up?” Claudia asks as she tilts her head towards her. And Rayla sees the gentle curve of her nose, and the shape of her smile, and the way her green eyes grow bright as they catch the light.

“It’s nothing,” Rayla says as she sets the laptop down on Claudia’s tummy. 

“Oof!” Claudia says. “Well, thanks for the assist. I think.” 

It’s not nothing. There’s a weird feeling brewing in Rayla’s chest that has her thinking. Right now, she knows three things. 

One, she has no idea what time it is anymore. 

Two, she still doesn’t know what she’s doing here. 

Three, she doesn’t really care about any of that right now.

It's her second time in Claudia's room. Two times almost makes a habit. Two times, and already Rayla’s teetering on the edge of  _something_ , of familiarity and safety, of comfort and warmth and another place to call a not-quite home. 

She looks at Claudia, and warmth trembles in Rayla’s chest. It’s almost like an ache, this grand and terrible feeling of inevitability. It feels like with enough momentum, she’ll pitch forward and over...

Rayla combs her hair back over her forehead and lets out a breath to steady herself.

It’s… It’s the second time she steps foot in Claudia's bedroom. 

Something tells Rayla it won’t be the last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to talk about the shitty treatment of ex-Wonderstorm employees. 
> 
> To feel so thumbed down and gaslit you're having a breakdown in the toilet? To not feel safe about talking one-on-one with your boss? Aaron can be in denial about Wonderstorm's toxic work environment all he wants. His denial doesn't invalidate these ex-employees' experiences. Working under him had very real and damaging consequences their health and wellbeing.
> 
> Super skeevy things:  
> The ex-staff had to sign non-disparagement agreements. They should have a right to talk about their experiences without fear of legal reprisal! Aaron publicly claims to support diverse perspectives, while deliberately omitting the perspectives of actual deaf people about Amaya. He claims Wonderstorm aims to support projects led by women, POC and LGBT staff, but actively shut down tdp writers whenever they pitched Claudia as bi in the writer's room. He does all this while disclosing to a fan in private that Claudia's bi. What and why...
> 
> I want Wonderstorm to actually embody the values they claim to care about and not just co-opt the language as PR speak for brownie points. I want the people helming Wonderstorm to be more empathetic and less hypocritical human beings. POC, women and LGBT employees deserve a safe and open workspace where they’re treated with dignity and respect! It's not enough to have diversity on the writing team. It's meaningless if you don't value their input and give them a contributing voice! 
> 
> The first step towards that is for Wonderstorm to take public accountability. They need to acknowledge all these issues and make a sincere effort to change for the better. If someone at the top steps down or gets replaced, then good! There should be repercussions for putting staff through living hell. At the very least, the ex-staff deserve a sincere apology!
> 
> I'm angry and sad. I'm still so fond of these characters, but as it stands, I don't want to support Wonderstorm the way it is now. I'll boycott s3 on Netflix unless something’s done.
> 
> Y’know, when s1 dropped, I thought of Raydia as free real estate cause the writers were too straight to see their potential for friendship and romance. Now I wonder if some tdp writers did see that potential. Maybe someone pitched it but their voices were drowned out by people on top who didn't value diverse voices as much as they claimed they did. Now I wonder about all the pitches shot down. I wonder about all the different perspectives and potential of the untold stories shelved in favour of ‘Aaron’s vision’. 
> 
> I don’t know who kept trying to pitch bi-Claudia in the tdp writer’s room, only to get shot down by Aaron. I don’t know which writers kept championing for more and better diversity on the show either. It’s not easy to do that and keep getting knocked down day after day. I wish they had been treated with more respect and dignity. I don’t know who they are, but they’re my heroes.
> 
> I’ll try finishing at least one tdp story out of both love and spite. If Aaron won’t allow bi-Claudia in the show, it sure as hell will happen here. She’s getting a goofy love story and a happy ending! 
> 
> That’s what I’m gonna do for now, but I understand if you don’t want to be a part of the tdp fandom anymore. I feel super scummy. I may leave too. I can’t love the show knowing the terrible things that happened behind closed doors. A part of me is hoping for a redemption arc here, but… I don’t know. Apathy isn’t the answer, but I just feel shell-shocked…
> 
> Idk whether this is goodbye, but I want to say that the best thing about tdp is its community of fans. That’s the only thing Aaron got right. You guys are some of the funniest, most enjoyable people I’ve ever had the good fortune to interact with online. If you’ve drawn or written something tdp related, come up with memes or made gifs, theories, fanvids or been involved in cool, collaborative projects, or commented and liked stuff others have created—thank you so much. I’m only at the periphery, but I laughed and smiled a ton because of you! Thank you sincerely from the bottom of my heart.
> 
> It was cathartic to write it all out, but I’m so sorry about the length. Ao3's my only tether to fandom cause I'm not on Twitter or Tumblr. If I make either accounts, I’ll move this there. Feel free to share your thoughts on Wonderstorm, this story or anything. It might be cathartic for you too. Tweet about it! Talk about it! We should always strive to hold those in positions of power to more accountability. 
> 
> As always, take care and be well!


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